Top Lithuanian Coaches

[auris1]

But will he be available by then?Since the qualifiers are being held during the clubs' and the NBA season,everybody needs a full-time coach.We have also the same problem with Itoudis and Bartzokas.A project like this needs time.And I doubt that Saras will find it while coaching Zalgiris.That's something that every Nt needs to consider.

We wont be playing qualifiers ,hopefully, for another few years .
Regarding our coaches other than a head one - MAskoliunas ,Krapikas have been assisting for how many years now ?
Maybe we need some new people besides them . Some fresh blood ,so to speak .
Regarding head coach position - Kurtinaitis-I feel he deserves that role ,but i have my doubts whether he can beneficial for the team .
He has strong opinions and is tough on the players to the point where he can alienate some of them. Then again ,his pedigree as a player and a coach is unquestionable .
I like Maksvytis - i think he should be involved at some capacity .
But even Kazlauskas retires ,we do not have to chose a new head coach straight away .

[Modis]

Kurtinaitis is a very unpredictable and strong character i am not sure players could fully open up with him especially the younger ones.
Saras is a great guy and i would prefer him to but is he ready to take this huge step i think he would decline an offer himself.

[CoachZ]

I would go with a young coach with a lot of talent and promise. Lith and Serbia are so similar in many things regarding to basketball, so in this case I think we have a lot in common, since the pressure on the basketball NT is always unreasonably high. Since you will be entering a new Olympic cycle and now you don't have an imperative of titles and etc (similar like Serbia in 2013/14) and expectations are a bit lower, you should go with a long term solution with the coach that will get you to be a true force for 2019-2020 period of WC (as a test for Olympics) and 2020 OG.

So get someone who is talented but can get the respect of the guys and pull some hard lines and see who you realistically expect to be there for 2020. That might mean cutting ties with some guys that now can still play and be good but long term might take away from team building and developing youngsters and a new core for the NT. I am the first one to tell you that is not easy, I am the first guy that doesn't like Djordjevic as our NT coach (young, unproven, vain, full of himself) but I also have to admit that some of the cuts and changes he made brought us back in contention and created a new core for strong future. So someone like Saras could be great, if he is interested. The key is not to burden him by expectations right away.

[Straight forward]

Which coach would you trust and want to take the wheel of NT if Kazlauskas retires? Unfortunately I have no favourites here. Logically Kurtinaitis, but he tends to say complete nonsense in the media and from time to time you can see that he is still the same Kaunas' thug who can't keep himself away from saying something stupid and acting like unpredictable man (also bad memories when he with Butautas decided to go with Mažutis and Jomantas as PGs in 2009). He is decent coach, but never reached that next step. I only have hopes that Jasikevičius turns out to be flexible, modern coach who doesn't afraid to integrate youngsters, have large scale of ideas. He worked with many good coaches in his career and I pretty like his carriage as a head coach. He didn't become a screaming monkey like Pačėsas as some people expected. Yet he has huge respect by players and overall in the basketball world of Europe and knows when he can and should to fire up. So only Jasikevičius would be my choice in the future if he turns out to be a good coach. If big European clubs are hunting him, maybe we shouldn't wait too long and to try him out. It's not like we have bunch of world class coaches anyway.

[Straight forward]

Kurtinaitis got fired by Chimki. Well it was a good run for Kurtinaitis with this team. Now I think timing is pretty good for Kurtinaitis to consider NT head coach position if Kazlauskas will retire after Olympics and most likely he will knowing how reluctantly he talked about the future work with the NT just after EB.

[Ashtrusis_dantis]

People please throw Sireika away. He has no place in this list. He is a bad (ok max mediocre) coach, who has ZERO knowledges about defence, tactic and has no idea how to play endings of a game. All his victories (actually just one - EC2003) are becourse he coached most talented generation of Lithuanian basketball players at their peak and did it terribely. In year 2003 he used Kazlauskas schemes and Don Nelson junior defensive knowledges, thats why we won. And in year 2004 he showed all his "knowledges" first by not taking Kaukenas because (quoting) "you are a good player, but you dont match my game schemes" and taking Gustas (what a fk? Kaukenas can't dribble or what? Put these schemes in to your hm... if they don't allow you to take Kaukenas, but allow you to take Gustas), second by trying to solve all problems with 3pt shooting. Third by not taking Nelson who was working as defensive coach in our NT for more than decade. With Kazlauskas we would never ever have such defeats like against Italy (2004) or Turkia (2006), or Macabi (2004) and so on. Im even not talking about his famous frases like "who runs fastest in our team" or "men what should we do?" That coach is a parody, not a good coach.

[omgsomuchpotential]

In the future, you can just edit your post if you want change or add something. It's to the left of the Reply button.

Kazlauskas is a "mathematical genius", as Kunigėlis put it yesterday, but he does have his limitations. He concocts very specific game plans that players must follow and allows little improvisation sometimes. This can be a bad thing, because if other teams can predict what weapons you'll be using, you're toast. That's kind of what happened with yesterday's game - we were too predictable and the Croatians took advantage of us. That's why I don't feel overly confident that we'll grab a medal in this tournament. We need better team chemistry and offensive fluidity to beat teams like Croatia, France, Serbia and Spain than what we've shown so far.

I actually think Kazlauskas' coaching style is a perfect fit for this type of player personnel we have. We don't have any great individually skilled players but instead quite a few ones that are team-oriented to execute Kazlauskas schemes. If we had guys like Tony Parker then maybe it would be a different story, but as of now there probably isn't a better Lithuanian coach to work with these players. Kurtinaitis could be a nice alternative though.

[Modis]

In the future, you can just edit your post if you want change or add something. It's to the left of the Reply button.

Kazlauskas is a "mathematical genius", as Kunigėlis put it yesterday, but he does have his limitations. He concocts very specific game plans that players must follow and allows little improvisation sometimes. This can be a bad thing, because if other teams can predict what weapons you'll be using, you're toast. That's kind of what happened with yesterday's game - we were too predictable and the Croatians took advantage of us. That's why I don't feel overly confident that we'll grab a medal in this tournament. We need better team chemistry and offensive fluidity to beat teams like Croatia, France, Serbia and Spain than what we've shown so far.

He can be to strict with his players,and as I heard in one of his interviews he really hates when players don't follow his directions.Kazlauskas needs to chill sometimes But Kazlauskas is the only coach in Lithuania now who has a chance to reach what Vladas Garastas did. Vladas Garastas has 2 Bronze medals in Olympic Games 1992, 1996, and a Silver in EuroBasket 1995. Kazlauskas has a Bronze medal in Olympic Games 2000, and a Silver in EuroBasket 2013. Kazlauskas was inches away from a Bronze in 2014. No matter how he does this year I hope he stays for Olympics 2016,if we get there of course but its more then likely Is there any other coach who could take over Kazlauskas now ? because the last two tournaments were excellent for him.

[macleopard13]

Sorry I meant to say 2003. Was typing to fast.

In the future, you can just edit your post if you want change or add something. It's to the left of the Reply button.

Kazlauskas is a "mathematical genius", as Kunigėlis put it yesterday, but he does have his limitations. He concocts very specific game plans that players must follow and allows little improvisation sometimes. This can be a bad thing, because if other teams can predict what weapons you'll be using, you're toast. That's kind of what happened with yesterday's game - we were too predictable and the Croatians took advantage of us. That's why I don't feel overly confident that we'll grab a medal in this tournament. We need better team chemistry and offensive fluidity to beat teams like Croatia, France, Serbia and Spain than what we've shown so far.

[Modis]

Sorry I meant to say 2003. Was typing to fast.

[Modis]

I like Jonas Kazlauskas overall. But I also like Antanas Sireika. He was the one who won Gold for us in Eurobasket 2013

[Shawshank]

i agree with mindozas with almost everyhting.And i can add lets say eurobasket 2003 champs team was kazlauskas prepared team and sireika got the credit.In zalgiris he made stombergas and both zukauskas what they were, macijauskas,siskauskas,javtokas was under kazlauskas wing in 2002-2004 when they were making first strong steps in rytas team, jasikevicius worked with kazlauskas from his 18 years in youngster champs,kazlauskas took jasikevicius every summer 1997-1998-1999 even when he was making more mistakes than assists, but he saw in him leader by character that is needed at PG and was taking him every summer as back up to maskoliunas.Until in 2000 saras exploided,songaila was taken by kazlauskas at 21years old tottaly unknown even for us lithuanians to 2000 olimpic games .All those players leaded our team for 4-5 years and won biggest tournament in our basketball history eurobasket 2003.And kazlauskas had his part in that.But sireika was the men kas nuskyne kazlausko sodintus vaisius arne ?

In my eyes Lithuania had never had better coached than Kazlauskas.I was and are very happy that sabonis talked to him and hired him back and again Jonas didnt dissapoint us.Both tournaments were max what our team could achieve.

[Mindozas]

Wow, great analysis! So Butautas is the worst one out of all of these then (excluding Stombergas/Adomaitis)? He achieved a bronze medal in EB 2007; could he have achieved more?

Excluding Seskus, yeah, from my point of view, Butautas is the worst one. Sure his team won bronze in 2007, was 4th in Olympics 2008, but Butautas was close to none factor in these achievements. Saras and Siska were more of the coaches, who led the team on the floor. Team was totally dependable on their creativity as basically had no strickt gameplan. If they had their game goin', shots were falling, we were good, but if not - no B plan from coaching stuff. It was really obvious when we faced Russia in semi. We had less than 24h to prepare for this game after very tough 1/4 vs Croatia, so under normal circumstances, coaches must've had to work their asses off and prepare some gameplan, tactics as it was simply too little time for players to rest and Russia had one day off more, so we with our usual free-flowing bball could've had problems. But as the game started, nothing was on. Players struggled, Russia was inceasing it's lead, Blatt obviously was prepared and it worked great. We were losing ~20pts in 1st half, then Siska stepped up and brought us back in the game with individual efforts, still no hand of coach, so it wasn't enough. Butautas after Eurobasket said that he is man of honour and he will leave the helm of NT if he won't win a medal in Olympics, also added that you have to have "eyes of pig" to continue if you'll fail after such words. And...he continued. But karma hit him back in 2009, which was the best prove of his coaching abilities when Saras took summer off and Siska retired out of NT. Playin' Jomantas and Mazutis as PG, benching Kalnietis. It was smth... We all remember how it all worked-out.
Of course, you can never know what would've happened with some serious coach like Kazlauskas f.e. Sometimes life brings unexpected surprises and some lucky dudes reaches more than respected and wise persons. But the thing is clear, we achieved what we achieved in 2003-2008 cause of players talent we had and coaches had minimal impact on it. Even if Butautas was the worst one here, that 2004 semi and clueless Sireika was the worst bball experience I've ever had. Bein' one step away from Olympic final and maybe gold and end up with nothing, it hurts badly

[macleopard13]

I will write it in my way, if you don't mind

Kazlauskas - depends on team he has and it's strenght and weakenesses. He won Saporta Cup and EL with Zalgiris, playin' fast tempo, beautiful, passing bball, when in Europe defensive one was winning the titles. The same was with NT in Sidney. Now he prefers defensive one, cause our NT is limited in creativity and offense.

Kurtinaitis - more offense, but also he is smart coach, understands the game, charismatic, respected by the players

Seskus - my keyboard fails to write word "coach" near his name. At most he could coach classes at school with his "mesk tris, blet, kurva, kas tau yra nx, bek, tris mesk" (couldn't write this in english, cause he can't speak it)

Sireika - offensive one, good psychologist, but overall poor in-game coach. Failed badly in 2004 semi, when we needed coach the most

Kemzura - balanced one. Good tacticial, learned some stuff from Blatt surely, but sometimes lacks cool nerves, experience, so makes wrong in-game decision and has no charisma to be a true leader. Could be great assistant for top coaches tho

Krapikas - balanced. Looks like learned some tactical stuff from Kazlas in NT, and tries to bring it to Zalgiris, especially defense of course. Good that he is learning, but the same like Kemzura, lacks charisma and leadership qualities to become top coach

Butautas - poor man's Sireika, but without psychologist qualities. Another sad example when great NT generation was "lead" by a poor coach and couldn't reach it's best it could

Maksvytis - offensive one

Stombergas, Adomaitis - need more time to judge them

Wow, great analysis! So Butautas is the worst one out of all of these then (excluding Stombergas/Adomaitis)? He achieved a bronze medal in EB 2007; could he have achieved more?

How would Darius Maskoliūnas fit into your template?

I don't know too much about Maskoliunas to categorize him, sorry.

Do you think Team Lietuva has the players for a fast tempo game these days?

Yes. The anchors right now are Javtokas, brothers Lavrinovic, Jasaitis and Jankunas - these guys are slow and old. Once we get rid of them (most likely at or after the Olympics), our team will have the potential to play fast paced basketball. The new kids on the block Gudaitis and Sabonis will surely bring speed to the team (we can even throw in Kavaliauskas for a vet reinforcement - he thrives in fast paced games). Gailius or Ulanovas can replace Jasaitis, Lekavicius can join, and suddenly we're a fast team. We just need a good coach (Kurtinaitis will do) and then we can aim for a gold medal in EB 2017 .

[Hepcat]

Let's see, I'm trying to characterize Lithuanian coaches based on their offense/defense, post/shooting, up-tempo/slow-tempo coaching philosophy.

This is my impression:

Kazlauskas - primarily defense, goes through the post, slow/medium tempo
Kurtinaitis - primarily offense, likes shooters, fast tempo
Seskus - offense, loves shooters, medium/fast tempo
Sireika - offense, loves shooters, fast tempo
Kemzura - primarily offense, balanced, medium/fast tempo
Krapikas - balanced, favors the post, medium tempo
Adomaitis - primarily offense, balanced, medium/fast tempo
Stombergas - balanced, balanced, medium tempo
Butautas - primarily offense, likes shooters, medium tempo
Maskvytis - offense, balanced, fast tempo

Thoughts?

How would Darius Maskoliūnas fit into your template?

Do you think Team Lietuva has the players for a fast tempo game these days?